Andrea Albutt says the crisis in prisons in England and Wales is the result of a ‘toxic mix’ of pressures.
Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

The president of the Prison Governors Association (PGA) has said prisons in England and Wales are in crisis due to a “perverse” government overhaul and a “toxic mix” of pressures.

In an open letter published as riot officers were called to a prison for a second day, Andrea Albutt launched a scathing attack on the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), saying the PGA had been left “devastated at the complete decline of our service” and that the recent increase in indiscipline among prisoners was of grave concern.

The government has said it has taken immediate action to increase prison officer numbers, while creating a body to drive through its set of changes.

However, Albutt said governors had told her that they had seen nothing tangible come from the MoJ to ease the burden on prisons, leaving governors facing “unacceptable stress and anxiety”.

“We know many prisons are in crisis and I deliberately use that term, because it can’t be dressed up in any other way,” she said.

The governor warned that an unforeseen rise in prisoners had left the estate with “virtually no headroom” in spaces, while seasonal pressures were adding strain to limited staffing levels.

Specialist teams were called into HMP The Mount in Hertfordshire, which has struggled with severe staff shortages, two days in a row after prisoners reportedly seized control of part of a wing, while there was an incident at HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire involving prisoners.

“The instability we are seeing is clearly linked to a poor regime,” Albutt said. “Further loss of accommodation, like those lost during the current, ongoing incidents at The Mount over the last couple of days, means drafts of prisoners are being moved across the country, compromising the families pathway and destabilising the receiving prisons as they try to maintain order amongst disaffected displaced men.

“This toxic mix does not have a quick fix and the future looks like more of the same.”

The governor said the issue of prison officer recruitment remained critical, with a net increase in the number of prison officers in 2016-17 of just 75.

She also raised concerns that a drive to increase the number of officer numbers too rapidly may cause further issues.

Members of the PGA have claimed that the selection process was allowing many unsuitable people through while training was of “poor quality”.

As part of its overhaul of prisons, the government has split operational control of offenders from policy decisions, with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service taking the place of the National Offender Management Service.

“Reform is the answer to all our woes and wouldn’t it be great if that was the case,” Albutt wrote. “Members are telling me that they have seen nothing tangible coming out of MOJ to ease the burden to date. The decision to separate policy from operations seems a perverse one and certainly not cost-effective when we are given messages that budgets remain very stretched.”

According to the PGA, there are 40 “prisons of concern”, of which 10 are “very concerning”.

John Podmore, a former governor of Brixton, Belmarsh and Swaleside prisons and a former prison inspector, said the system was “in a mess”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday: “We are where we are because of a fundamental breakdown in staff-prisoner relationships. Prisons run on cooperation and in many jails – not all, we have to say – that cooperation has gone. It’s about too few staff with too little experience, poor training, as Andrea has said, and uncompetitive pay.

“Staff are demoralised and prisoners are frustrated.”

Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon said Albutt had confirmed the “deep crisis” in the country’s prisons created by “disastrous” Tory policies.

“Prison officer numbers have been slashed while overcrowding has risen,” Burgon said. “Last week it was announced that violence in our prisons was at record levels. This week we have seen riots in The Mount and Erlestoke Prisons.

“The situation cannot be allowed to continue. Prisoners are not being rehabilitated and this is putting the public at risk.”

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said the criticisms levelled by Albutt must be taken seriously, and the government was not only failing prisoners but also prison officers and governors.

“It is astounding that repeated warnings about the state of our prisons seem to have fallen on deaf ears,” he said. “Violence continues unabated and it seems that either this government can’t get a grip or simply doesn’t care.

“The justice secretary must act quickly to recruit more officers and tackle the endemic problems of overcrowding and lack of education and training available to prisoners otherwise we are looking at a summer of violence and continued crisis.”

But the Conservative MP and chair of the Commons justice select committee, Bob Neill, told Today he did not share Albutt’s concerns over the government’s changes, saying the split between policy and operations happened successfully across other areas of the public sector.

The bigger problem, Neill said, was a serious disconnection and growing lack of confidence between “the top brass, if you like, of the Prison Service and the operational people on the ground”.

He added that low staffing was an issue, alongside a failure to hold on to more experienced employees. “There’s also the need, I think, to have a much clearer focus as to what the purpose of prison is.

“When that money was taken out some years ago, there had been discussion, which never came to fruition, I think largely for political reasons, about, at the same time as you reduced resourcing to fit in with what was a necessary budget reduction exercise, we had to look again at are we really sending people to prison who need to be in prison, and we still haven’t tackled that.”

A spokesman for the MoJ said: “We know that our prisons have faced a number of longstanding challenges, which is why we have taken immediate action to boost prison officer numbers and have created Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.

“This will help to create a distinct, professionalised frontline service and will ensure that policy and operations are working closely together to deliver these much-needed reforms.

“We need to create calm and ordered environments to help ensure effective rehabilitation, and we continue to work closely with the unions and all staff to help achieve these vital reforms and make prisons places of safety and reform.”